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Nanotechnology, replication, and low cost manufacturingRalph C. Merkle, Ph.D.
Principal Fellow
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Health, wealth and atoms
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Arranging atoms
• Diversity• Precision• Cost
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Richard Feynman,1959
There’s plenty of roomat the bottom
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1980’s, 1990’s
Binnig and Rohrer
Experiment and theory
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President Clinton, 2000
“Imagine the possibilities: materials with ten times the strength of steel and only a small fraction of the weight -- shrinking all the information housed at the Library of Congress into a device the size of a sugar cube -- detecting cancerous tumors when they are only a few cells in size.”
The National Nanotechnology Initiative
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Positional assembly
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Experimental
100 microns
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H. J. Lee and W. Ho, SCIENCE 286, p. 1719, NOVEMBER 1999
Experimental
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Theoretical
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Self replication
A redwood tree(sequoia sempervirens)112 meters tallRedwood National Park
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Complexity (bits)
• Von Neumann's constructor 500,000
• Mycoplasma genitalia 1,160,140
• Drexler's assembler 100,000,000
• Human 6,400,000,000
• NASA over 100,000,000,000
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The Von Neumann architecture
UniversalComputer
UniversalConstructor
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/vonNeumann.html
Self replication
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Replicating bacterium
DNA
DNA Polymerase
Self replication
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http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_6.html
Drexler’s proposal for an assembler
Self replication
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http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html
Macroscopiccomputer
Molecularconstructor
Molecularconstructor
Molecularconstructor
Broadcast architecture
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Advantages of broadcast architecture
• Smaller and simpler: no instruction storage, simplified instruction decode
• Easily redirected to manufacture valuable products
• Inherently safe
Broadcast replication
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Exponential assembly
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• Potatoes, lumber, wheat and other agricultural products have costs of roughly a dollar per pound.
• Molecular manufacturing will eventually make almost any product for a dollar per pound or less, independent of complexity. (Design costs, licensing costs, etc. not included)
Replication
The goal: low manufacturing costs
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An overview of replicating systemsfor manufacturing
• Advanced Automation for Space Missions, edited by Robert Freitas and William Gilbreath NASA Conference Publication 2255, 1982
• A web page with an overview of replication: http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html
Replication
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• be like living systems• be adaptable (survive in natural environment) • be very complex• have on-board instructions• be self sufficient (uses only very simple parts)
Popular misconceptions:replicating systems must
Replication
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Feynman, 1959
“The problems of chemistry and biology can be greatly helped if our ability to see what we are doing, and to do things on an atomic level, is ultimately developed -- a development which I think cannot be avoided.”
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The impactof a new manufacturing technologydepends on what you make
Impact
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• We’ll have more computing power in the volume of a sugar cube than the sum total of all the computer power that exists in the world today
• More than 1021 bits in the same volume• Almost a billion Pentiums in parallel
Powerful Computers
Impact
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• New, inexpensive materials with a strength-to-weight ratio over 50 times that of steel
• Critical for aerospace: airplanes, rockets, satellites…
• Useful in cars, trucks, ships, ...
Lighter, stronger,smarter, less expensive
Impact
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• Disease and ill health are caused largely by damage at the molecular and cellular level
• Today’s surgical tools are huge and imprecise in comparison
Impact
Nanomedicine
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• In the future, we will have fleets of surgical tools that are molecular both in size and precision.
• We will also have computers much smaller than a single cell to guide those tools.
Impact
Nanomedicine
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Mitochondrion~1-2 by 0.1-0.5 microns
Size of a robotic arm~100 nanometers
Impact
8-bit computer
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“Typical” cell: ~20 microns
MitochondrionSize of a robotic
arm ~100 nanometers
Impact
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Respirocytes
http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes.html
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Human impacton the environment
• Population• Living standards• Technology
The environment
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• Greenhouse agriculture/hydroponics• Solar power• Pollution free manufacturing
The environment
Reducing human impacton the environment
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• The scientifically correct answer is I don’t know
• Trends in computer hardware suggest early in this century — perhaps in the 2010 to 2020 time frame
• Of course, how long it takes depends on what we do
How long?
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